Struggles against neoliberal globalization and independent media

Notes: this is the first part of the workshop and will focus on tasks of alternative media during specific struggles against neoliberal globalization. The keynotes speeches are IMC's presentation "History of mobilizations against neoliberal globalization and the task of independent media" and Media Cultural Action's "Struggles against neoliberal globalization in Korea and tasks of alternative media"

Panel Discussion

According to the conference guideline, this part of the presentation is about the role of alternative media during specific struggles against neoliberal globalization. so i would focus on the anti-WTO struggle in last December and try to raise a few questions for further discussion in the end.

Background and clarification of terms

before going into the details, i would like to clarify a few terms in order to avoid misunderstanding. 1. our organization's offical name is Hong Kong InMedia, "IN" stands for independent. However, we don't have offical connection with the global IMC network. The reason why we do not join the IMC network is because the formation of inmedia is a very localized process in respond to the demoncratizaion movement and the HK-China relation. We stress that our practice is independent from governmental and political parties, as well as commercial / market force. And we want to make citizen reporting a participatory demoncratic practice for creating a critical public sphere and a critical mass.

having said that, here we come to the second confusing concept concerning "citizen reporter". I know the term citizen reporter sounds too liberal in the social movement circle of south korea. and in my last trip in seoul, i also noted that citizen reporting is becoming a "fashionable consumption\" of technological devices here. similar to formalistic demoncracy, it empowers people while neglecting content and substance. our translation of citizen reporter is "between people / among people" reporter. The context is of course related to liberation of media technology, apart from that, we stress the practice of citizen reporters to be political, educational, communicative and self-reflectives.

political in the sense that it is critical towards the political and commercial manipulation of mainstream media practice, towards formalistic demoncracy. educational in the sense that we encourage our reporters to go out to the lifeworld of others, ask questions and seek the answer and value by themselves. communicative in the sense that his or her version of report has to be opened for debate and constitute the inter-subjective public sphere. self-reflective in the sense that he / she has to be aware of the power of represenation and develop their ethics in interacting with others.

some of the local ngos were skeptical of inmedia because of its lack of ideological stand. besides, there is a strong consideration for the website to become popular so we have minmium editorial control on our columnists and citizen reporters. it resulted in a friendly split. another movement website called globalnetwork is formed. so at the beginning, inmedia community is composed of bloggers, youths and students, gay & lesbian, cultural activists, progressive christian because of various citizen report that touch the heart of their concern.

WTO and independent media action

Here is a list of work that we have done for the dec. WTO meeting with our very limited resources (no staff, no office, everything voluntary bases):

• report on the preparatory meetings of anti-WTO week
• reports on trips, gatts and privatization issues and its impact on third world
• join the media group preparation team (but very limited participation because of different consideration, they are focusing of mainstream propaganda but not facilitating alternative media)
• a series of article to criticize the mainstream media practices, such as security beat, government PR strategy
• support a citizen signature campaign demanding police not to use excessive force
• a workshop to brief citizen reporter who will participate in the citizen reporting during wto
• meeting with non-local alternative media activists concerning shared resources (failed because we don't have much to share and language problem, also too rushed)
• a conference to network with independent media which participated in the wto week for an interlocal website (different expectation and we did not aware of our role)
• wto reporting: demonstration, water privatization, taiwan team, korean team, police abuse (from reporter into demonstrators)
• mobilizing translation of articles to target wto
• thank you letter and citizen cheering team
• countering the mainstream depiction of "Riot", alternative stories and citizen account
• interprete the arrest as against human rights, discrimination and un-procedure
• internationalize issue by working with taiwan group in "stop visiting hk" campaign and the e-mail chain letter for framing the issue as political procecution
• rubber bullet story with a mainstream magazine to discredit the police; disclose police violence
• discredit the mainstream media (singtao case)
• joined the supporting team and published a printed version of citizen account of wto week
• detailed report on the court case, discrediting the department of justice
• support bishop zen against police's complaining letters to the pope. now bishop zen is promoted to regional bishop.
• initiate evaluation among ngos on wto week (relation between media and movement, friendly, critical and skeptical distance)
• follow up reports
• a research plan using wto as a case studies

From dec 17 to 18: alternative VS mainstream news

on the night of dec 17, the police department defined the anti-WTO demonstration as riot and annouced it in offical and commercial radio and T.V channels. Moreover, they also sent out SMS message to everyone with a mobile and asked all Hong Kong citizen not to go to Wanchai, nor join the WTO demonstration the next day. However, many local hong kong people were lingering in Wanchai district to see what actually happened. They were confronted with many roit polices who were trying the seal the area off. All these people became eye-witnesses and alternative information sources. besides internet radio and inmedia also became very important information sources. from dec 17-20, our daily visitor rate was more than 8000 on average.

on dec 18, most of the newspapers headlines were about "riot" or "wanchai being seized" ecohing the official annoucement and information source. HKPA, taking into the consideration of their responsibility to their local members, annouced that the december 18 demonstration was not part of the local mobilization, while police kept telling people to stay away from wanchai. however, there were more than 7000 local citizens (excluding migrants) joining the demonstration on dec 18. on the local mobilization day dec 11 (which is also a sunday), local participants were only about 4000. the organizers, mainstream media and government were surprised by the result. then the poll show that even hk people did not agree on violent acts, they were sympathize with the korean peasants' cause.

there were many explanations concerning the reason for people's attitude towards the korean demonstrators. For example korean popular culture, their mainstream media strategies. However, i think it is the skepticism that developed over time towards the mainstream media, especially towards the WTO issue. and the alternative sources provide the other side of the story. Especially that the alternative sources are from their friends' p to p e-mail, SMS or direct account.

for example, a passer-by teacher gave his account on the 17 on a very objective manner, such as the police force definitely out number the demonstrator, the sealing off of wanchai was ridiculous and he witnessed some demonstrators being hurt while trying not to hit back. his e-mail were widely distributed through e-mail and finally posted in inmedia as a witness account among more than other 20 articles.

the internet radio which stationed in the media center in wanchai is also an important source. the audience actually heard the coughing sound of the citizen reporters while the police were using tear-gas. they were very concerned and tried to check out the facts with friends who were at Wanchai whether the area was really a dangerous zone. the huge gap between the witnesses account from friends' network and mainstream media reports which depended on government sources had outraged people.

since the early 90s, news has been becoming more and more a consumer item. even people know that the news are exaggerating, they consume the news as they offer interesting topics for boring life. the moral loading of peasant issue in WTO had touched the baseline of ordinary people - it is a serious issue rather than a consumption item. the gov't and mainstream media's maipulation of facts has crossed the base line of people's moral ground. they chose to come out to street on the 18th to show their discontent.

people's reaction had put both the government and the mainstream media in an awakward position. very quickly a poll came out to explain the situation that people don't support violence while being sympathize with the korea farmers. the poll and interpretation is rather misleading. the case actually showed that people support "situated violent expression". and this finding is inspiring for local social movement, as the movement in the past is very self-limiting in social action and expression of discontent. everyone (gov't, organizers, participants and ordinary people) tends to believe and act in the way that demonstration is just a show of hand rather than a real struggle or showing of people's power.

impact of WTO on inmedia

action media - we are now in the process of exploring action media, which is combining movement action with media practice.

e.g tree felling incident in chinese university campus

media reform position - how neoliberalisation affects mainstream media workers' welfare and news quality; the monoply of resources against public interest.

network platform for affinities groups (the emergence of new social movenment organizational form)

reflection on the relation between people's media and NGOs. (hanging question)

alternative and counter public space

the role of alternative media and international solidarity

Question

• the issue of popularity in alternative media, can we be popular?
• the relation between media and social movement, media as a tool?
• the relation between global and local alternative media